By Zach DeMarcus
February 16, 2019
 
(SANTA BARBARA, Calif.) Westmont Men's Basketball (15-8, 9-6 GSAC) lost their first home game of the year in tonight's Golden State Athletic Conference game against #10 The Master's (22-5, 11-4 GSAC) by a score of 81-97. Olisa Nwachie led the Warriors with 20 points and DeSean Scott added 19 points and grabbed eight rebounds.
 
Darryl McDowell-White scored the first five points of the game with a 3-pointer and a layup to put the Mustangs up by five with the game just 45 seconds old. McDowell-White led all scorers with 24 points and went six of 10 from beyond the arc.
 
With the score in the Mustangs' favor at 29-22 and 6:10 remaining in the first half, Westmont went on an 11-4 run to tie the game at 33-33 with 3:49 to play in the half. Kyle Scalmanini converted on a layup, Scott hit a jumper, The Master's scored on a layup, Nwachie grabbed an offensive rebound and slammed the ball home, Maxwell Hudgins alertly stole the inbound pass right after the dunk and laid the ball in. After a Michael Taylor layup, Tristan Lloyd tied the game with a 3-pointer.
 
The Mustangs' Delewis Johnson hit two free throws and Nwachie followed with a layup. Johnson went back to the line and went one of two, and Nwachie came back down and laid the ball in to put the Warriors up 37-36 with 2:31 to play in the half.
 
The Warriors, however, would not score the remainder of the half and the Mustangs closed out the half on an 11-0 run. Tim Soares hit two free throws and the Mustangs' leading scorer on the season Hansel Atencia hit three straight 3-pointers to secure a 10-point halftime advantage for the Mustangs – brining the score to 47-37.
 
Westmont head coach John Moore said, "I thought the real heartache of tonight's game was how we finished the first half. We had a one-point lead, thought we were playing well, and we missed finding Atencia and he makes three 3-pointers in a row."
 
In the first half, both teams struggled to keep the basketball as Westmont and The Master's both had 13 turnovers a piece.
 
The Master's took that momentum with them into the second half. The Mustangs would storm out to an 18-point lead with 15:49 to play in the game. They would lead by as many as 21 in the game with the score in their favor at 77-56 with 10:49 remaining.
 
The Mustangs went 20 of 27 from the free throw line and the Warriors got the line just 17 times – converting on 12. Moore noted, "Part of what we want to try to do is get to the free throw line. We only had four free throws in the first half. It has nothing to do with officiating, we need to attack the rim. When you have Tim Soares out there as a great shot blocker and great post defender, you have to attack the shot blocker and get to the free throw line. We did a little better job of that in the second half."
 
The Warriors remained down 19 with just over four and a half minutes to play and slowly chipped back to being down just 10 with 1:27 to go and the score at 81-91. Moore said, "Matt Ramon and Jordan Spaschek did some things that were important for us to cut into their 21-point lead. We cut it back to 10 with a minute and a half left and I thought maybe we were going to steal one."
 
Again, the Warriors were unable to score another point over the remaining minute and a half and would go on to drop the contest by a score of 81-97.
 
Moore of Scott, "I think DeSean did some really nice things in areas that were important to us. He wanted to play well tonight. I thought for the great majority of the game he did some really good things."
 
Westmont came in with a slightly different defensive look. Moore noted, "We put Olisa on their point guard and he did a really nice job for a good part of the first half until he got two fouls. We really put a lot of pressure on Olisa and he did what he could on Atencia."
 
In other news around the GSAC, Hope International (18-8, 9-6 GSAC) defeated OUAZ (4-21, 1-14 GSAC) 67-49. #17 William Jessup (19-8, 10-5) took down #6 Vanguard (23-4, 11-4 GSAC) by a score of 89-85 in overtime. Life Pacific (10-14, 4-11 GSAC) triumphed over #24 Arizona Christian (21-6, 9-6 GSAC) 94-85. Menlo (11-13, 7-8 GSAC) defeated San Diego Christian (8-16, 4-11 GSAC) by a score of 94-72.
 
Vanguard and The Master's are now in a tie for first. William Jessup sits alone in third place. Westmont, Arizona Christian, and Hope International are all tied for fourth place. Menlo sits two games outside the top six in seventh with three GSAC games left to play.
 
"I think we'll finish really strong. I think our guys are prepared to bounce back. They've been guys who've played their best basketball when it's counted the most – aside from parts of tonight's game. I think we'll bounce back and we'll be ready for San Diego Christian next Thursday on the road," finished Moore.
 
Westmont will now prepare to travel to San Diego Christian for an 8:15 p.m. tipoff on Thursday and will return home to host Hope International Saturday at 7:30 p.m.